Gavin came back around nine — red eyes, bags, the limp resignation of a man who's seen the worst Detroit can offer. Alexandra met him, took his jacket, shoved coffee into his hands. He drank without wincing. Then he crashed on the couch and slept until almost four — waking only to shower and collapse again. By five, the TV was on idle. They'd found something more interesting.

Now he slept without dreams, even breathing, face relaxed. His hand lay on her pillow, fingers clenched. Alexandra slipped out, pulled up the blanket, kissed his shoulder. He didn't wake up.

She loved him like this — exhausted, defenseless — when Gavin Reed stopped being a detective and remained just Gavin, who whispered nonsense into her hair then pulled her T-shirt up.

She tiptoed around. Found his old faded "Alice in Chains" T-shirt on the floor. Tried it on: hem mid-thigh, thin fabric, no bra. Hair a mess, a fresh hickey on her neck — Gavin hadn't been gentle. She pulled on shorts. The evening had been something else: wet stains on the sheet — one large, a few smaller where he pressed her hips — and the air still held that sharp musky smell of sweat and intimacy.

She sat in the kitchen, glanced into the living room. Gavin slept mouth open like a child. Alexandra smiled and went to open the door — someone knocked insistently. Who is it?

On the doorstep stood Elena in her gray blouse, neat hair, a face composed until it decides to destroy you. They had met before — twice. Neither time ended well. On her chest — a darkened copper cross she never took off. Elena came from her world: a tiny apartment with icons above the stove, Sunday Mass at a run-down Detroit church where the priest still remembered peasants praying in the fields. She'd grown up where God, work, and shame were the only guides. Now she wanted one thing: a modest, patient wife for Gavin. With a long skirt and hands used to dough and iron. Like her.

"Good evening, Alexandra," Elena said, icy polite.

Her peasant's gaze scanned the girl.

First, the T-shirt. Elena recognized it. She'd bought it for Gavin fifteen years ago, when he started listening to that "depressing garbage." Now his girlfriend paraded in it with nothing underneath — nipples visible, hem barely covering her ass. Elena remembered those tabloid covers at the grocery store — Pamela Anderson spilling out of a swimsuit, Tommy Lee with his drumsticks and that smirk. Vulgarity packaged as glamour. But this girl wasn't even trying to be glamorous. She just looked like she'd rolled out of a motel room after a Mötley Crüe afterparty. Cheaper. Sadder. Without the excuse of a photo shoot.

Second, the hickey. Fresh, wet, almost purple — with teeth marks. In her youth, they called those "moose bites" and were deeply ashamed.

Third, her hair. Not just tangled — damp at the roots, matted into untidy knots, as if someone had pulled and grabbed it.

She shifted her gaze deeper into the living room. Gavin slept bare to the waist — blanket down to his back. On his collarbone, a fresh red spot. Elena had never imagined her son like this — animalistic, wild. She had prayed he'd stay a gentle boy.

On the armrest — black lace panties, tiny as a palm. Elena stared, her lips pressing into a thin line. The bitter taste of disgust filled her mouth. The musky smell was stronger here. It reeked of the same kind of cheap thrill those rock stars lived for. Sin without even the dignity of a stage.

On Alexandra's thigh, below the T-shirt hem, a bruise in the shape of five fingerprints. Someone had held her hard. The same someone sleeping on the couch.

"Hello, Elena..." Alexandra's voice wavered. She clutched the shirt, blushed. "You… you didn't call."

"I hope I'm not interrupting," Elena didn't raise her voice. She took a slow step back, as if from garbage. Just icy disgust. "I called Gavin. Five times. He didn't answer. I was worried."